The fear people have on NH about China is >10x worse than what real chinese people living in China feel about their own government. After living there for a while, the things I hear on US social media sounds like it came strait out of a South Park parody. Many of the supposedly high crimes that may get you jailed or killed (according to Americans) are the equivalent of jaywalking in New York City.
I meant the people's reaction look like a South Park episode, not china's actions. The way they get hysterical and claim that you could spend years in jails for stupid things like having a picture of Winnie the Pooh on your phone. And it never stops, every couple of months, there is a new made up and/or exagerated thing about china that Americans are ultra confident about even if they have never been to china or talked to a Chinese person. This week for exemple, politicians (not trump this time) on tv were talking about how most Chinese migrant are ccp spies/soldiers.
Exactly this. I felt extremely safe in Shenzen. More safe than I've ever been in any American city.
Maximum propaganda about China in the west has done people in. But people in the west still swears that they actually have press freedom. Yet, no mainstream press will ever write anything remotely positive about China or simply daily life in China.
And had a US passport, which gives some protection, which also means they can just leave.
It takes staggering levels of privilege to claim visiting China as a US national is the same as living there as a Chinese national.
People don't understand how these authoritarian regimes work because it's so far outside of their experience. During the Nazi rule and occupation most people just continued their lives as before, especially during the first few years. What else could you do, right? And mostly, it was kind of okay. But it wasn't "safe" by any means, even for non-Jews. But people also weren't shaking with fear 24/7.
> no mainstream press will ever write anything remotely positive daily life in China.
The number of videos that westerners are receiving with positive messages about daily life in China, (or S. Korea, or Japan) on tablets, laptops or TV channels has never been so high in fact.